12.12.2011

The Summer of 2008 was my last summer to feel free like a teenager running games in the night. My hair was short like a boy's because I was seeking liberation from a man. The air was sticky and filled with longings of love while living in a house of five dramatic boys. Our plates were filled with slime and our toes constantly dusty with dust balls. We were craving for something to break us free from our daily existences.
Dolly Parton became my roommate and I's closest companion even if we played only the same single of hers over and over. She seemed to coo us with tails of our Southern homes on every replay. We needed to find love and to be in love. Our summer became a search for someone important to us. We partied, devoured films, read books, and wrote words into our papers but nothing seemed to fulfill the void of longing to be loved.
Something changed mid-to-late summer while we tried to relate our feelings to one another. Something had shifted inside me. I was starting to go a different direction while my friend stayed put. I could no longer talk about how there was no one to crush on. Someone had said hello to me, leaving me wanting more. My actual love story was just beginning.